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This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.

Issue #61, 1/5/2007

Expressive Dissonance

By Glenn CampbellFamily Court Philosopher

Imagine that it is Christmas morning, and everyone in the
family has received a remote controlled toy car. Soon, these
things are racing around the living room floor, crashing
into things and scaring the daylights out of the cat.

One obvious characteristic of these vehicles is their
awkwardness. Each person has a controller in their hands and
is trying to make their car do what they want it to, but
having the intention to do something and actually getting it
done are two different things. You want the car to turn
right and head for the cat, but when you push the levers on
the controller, you end up going left and getting bogged
down under the Christmas tree.

Our own bodies are not much different. Sometimes what we
say and do in the outside world isn't exactly what we
intended, because our hand on the controller is awkward and
inexperienced. It is like we are operating this
robot—our body—from some distant control room.
Sometimes it says and does what we want, but not always.
No matter how skilled we are at operating the machine, there
is always going to be a dichotomy between what we intend and
what gets expressed, and we have to learn to live with this
discrepancy.

Our actions may also be disrupted by our own emotional
vulnerabilities. We intend to say one thing, like "I love
you," but because we get scared or nervous, something
different might come out of our mouth. Although we
intend to draw someone close, if we haven't mastered the
controller, then what we do or say might end up sending the
opposite message and driving them away.

This is an important principle of human behavior: People's
inner intentions and outer actions are two separate things.
Ideally, our words and actions should match our intentions,
but making this happen is a complicated skill that does not
always come naturally. Just because you have the controller
in your hand doesn't mean that you can make the machine do
what you want it to. Likewise, the outward actions of the
machine do not necessarily reflect the intentions of the
operator.

This is different from how we usually perceive people,
especially those who we don't know. If, on our first
meeting with someone, they do or say something good or bad,
we automatically assume that it reflects their long-term
personality. We often misjudge people because of this,
taking some detail of their actions and assuming that it
reflects their whole personality. In fact, their current
actions may reflect a momentary misjudgment, a deliberate
charade or a transient emotional state, not their true
intentions.

We are much more lenient with people who we know. We can
accept that a family member is "in a bad mood" and "didn't
mean what he said," while we are less likely to say this
about a stranger. With people we are close to, we recognize
the controller issues. We know that they are good people
inside; they just pressed the wrong buttons and something
uncharacteristic came out. They did something rude only
because they were feeling vulnerable or misjudged the effect
of their actions.

The theory that people's outer actions are different from
their inner intentions deserves a name. For now, we can
call it "expressive dissonance." In fact, we can say that
people's actions ALWAYS differ from their intentions to some
degree. There is always some problem of translation between
the inner and outer worlds. Words and actions are inherently
crude and are never going to be adequate to convey your
inner intent. The more skilled, disciplined and experienced
you are in your chosen media, the more accurately you can
express yourself, but you are never going to do it
perfectly.

The alternative theory could be called "expressive unity."
This is the dumb theory that the law, daily journalism
and society at large usually follow: Your actions are
always the same as your inner state. If you did something
bad, then you are a bad person. If you said certain
embarrassing words, then these words can be repeated over
and over as an reflection of your inner intentions. It
doesn't matter if these words were an isolated misjudgment
or were taken out of context. If you said them, then they
must reflect who you are.

Expressive unity can also extend to appearances. According
to this theory, if a man is big, has a scar on his cheek and
a patch over his eye, then he must be mean and dangerous.
In fact, he could turn out to be gentle and generous. The
outer expression, which obviously he has little control
over, may not be an accurate reflection of the inner self.

Expressive unity is a simplistic theory, but it has its
immediate value. If someone you don't know is coming at you
with a knife, it is wise to take immediate evasive action
without trying to analyse their inner motives. However, once
you have more time and don't seem in immediate danger, you
would be wise to look deeper. Apparently aggressive acts
may not be what you think they are and may be more a
reflection of your own paranoia rather than the other
person's intent.

Expressive dissonance is usually the more enlightened theory,
but even it has its drawbacks. If you keep looking beyond a
person's behavior to their theoretically innocent inner self,
then you may be excusing their bad behavior and even
encouraging it. Maybe everyone is good inside, but if they
keep behaving badly, then eventually you have to respond to
the behavior as it is presented, not as it might be
intended. A theory of expressive dissonance encourages
forgiveness and tolerance, but it may also lead you to
tolerate more abuse than you should.

Some people are very dissonant. What they say and do rarely
reflects what they are feeling inside. Teenagers are often
like that, as are emotionally volatile adults. There is a heavy
element of acting in their behavior, because they aren't
confident enough in their own inner identity to be able to
express it directly. Unfortunately, they can also be very
abusive in the outer world. They may not have "intended" to
hurt other people, but they do, and boundaries have to be
placed on this behavior.

It is much better to be unified, where what you express in
the outside world closely reflects what you are feeling
inside. This is the best kind of communication between
people, but it isn't easy, because as soon as you expose
your inner self, you start making yourself vulnerable. What
if people don't like your inner self? What if it makes you
seem small and worthless?

Indeed, in paranoid environments there is often good reason
to hide your inner intent, because it may be misinterpreted
and lead to a visit from the Secret Police. You always have
to be careful about how you express yourself in any social
environment, but you still want to find a way to do it, because
some element of honesty is essential to all human communication.

Young children express themselves quite freely and openly.
In adolescence, we lose this capability in our own
self-consciousness, and in adulthood we have to learn to get
it back. True maturity is being able to express your true
self to others within the means available to you and without
losing yourself. It is also learning to see beyond the crude
expressions of others to what might be hidden inside.

If you believe in expressive dissonance, then what people
say and do is only a starting point. The words spoken and
the actions taken are only the ripples on the surface of a
much larger ocean. You may have to use some triangulation and
detective work to figure out what is really going on beneath
the surface.

—G.C.

Links

The fact that we have used a Christmas
metaphor does not mean that we have softened on the subject.
See Essay #54: Let's Dis Christmas.